‘LRT won’t impact transit jobs in Waterloo Region’, says GRT Director of Transit Services

It won’t be until early 2018 until we get to use Light Rail Transit in Waterloo Region but when we do, could jobs at Grand River Transit be affected?

In Ottawa, transportation officials say fewer buses and fewer drivers will be needed when their LRT is in operation. This meaning as many as 600 positions could be cut.

Eric Gillespie, Director of Transit Services at Grand River Transit tells 570 News that Ottawa has a large network of services that will be affected when their LRT is launched, but here at home, that is not the case.

“In the case with Waterloo Region, primarily we have the Route 200 and the Route 7 that are being realigned and reallocated to other areas, so there aren’t any plans for cutting back service or cutting back jobs.”

And with those two routes impacted, Gillespie says the service will be reallocated to iXpress routes. The two routes that will be launched over the next two years include iXpress buses on Ottawa in Kitchener (2017) and another on Coronation Blvd in Cambridge (2018).

He adds, those iXpress routes are specifically designed to bring people to the ION Stations and make them easily accessible.

“We have the one along Fischer Hallman, one along University Avenue, we recently introduced the 204 last Fall operating on Victoria and Highland. These are fast, frequent routes where they’re intended to get to a 10 minute service frequency to allow people within the suburban areas to quickly, and easily access the ION stations.”

More details on the reallocation of these services will be presented to council in coming months as part of the GRT Business Plan for 2017-2021.

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